Adrian Mateos Takes Down WSOP Europe Championship

Tuesday, October 29th, 2013 by Ryan

One of the most interesting events in poker was going on this past week when we saw the 2013 World Series of Poker Europe’s Championship Event start coming down to the end. The final day began with Adrian Mateos holding the chip lead, and when all was said and done he was the player who took down the championship as well. The event may get overshadowed with the World Series of Poker Main Event November Nine getting ready to get going in Las Vegas, Nevada, but this was a huge pay day and a huge tournament for the players. When the final table began, we saw Mateos holding a 1.4 million chip lead over the second closest player, Dominik Nitsche. After Nitsche, we saw Fabrice Soulier, then Benny Spindler, Ravi Raghavan, and Jerome Huge. So as you could tell, we had a pretty stacked final table of strong players. On top of that though, before getting down to our final six, we saw Shannon Shorr go out in 8th place, and Andrei Konopelko go out in 7th place.

When the final table play began, we saw Benny Spindler start getting into the action right out of the gate. Over the first ten hands, Spindler dropped under a million chips after a five bet from Nitsche, and then from there he pretty much was focused in on rebuilding his chip stack. When the first break came and went, we saw Spindler send the bulk of his chips away on a bluff. The bluff saw blind vs. blind to start it out, when it was Huge vs. Spindler. They saw a 9-6-5 board come down on the flop, and Huge bet out, followed by a call from Spindler. After that, the two saw the turn come with an Ace, and Spindler called another bet from Huge. Another five came on the river, and when Huge fired another bet, Spindler moved all-in. Huge called, and Spindler showed 3-2 for a massive bluff. Huge turned over A-7 for a pair of Aces. After this hand, we saw Huge with 1.4 million chips, and Spindler sitting with only 157k in chips, and on the very next hand he was knocked out in sixth place by Mateos.

We didn’t see another knockout for 27 hands, and this was when Raghavan, who had been battling with the short stack for quite a while, wasn’t able to double up against the chip leader in this spot. The flop came down K-10-8, and Raghavan and Mateos bet at each other until Raghavan was all-in. He had A-Q behind the K-8 of Mateos, but when an Ace on the turn came, it looked like he had some serious hope. The river didn’t turn it though, and Raghavan was sent home in fifth place.

Shockingly, Mateos was now sitting there and continuing to put pressure on the rest of the table. Mateos is only 19 years old, and was definitely the youngest player at the final table. We saw Soulier eliminate Huge in fourth place, and when we were down to three handed play it was Mateos with 5.7 million chips, Soulier with 3 million chips, and Nitsche with 2.4 million chips. Mateos didn’t slow down though, and he kept building his chip stack and his lead before the three endd up going to dinner break. It took just 15 hands after the break for Mateos to get his stack up to over eight million chips, while Nitsche (one million), and Soulier (2.2 million) were basically bleeding chips. Mateos then eliminated Nitsche in third place with A-7 holding up against the 9-8 of Nitsche. This meant that our heads up match saw Mateos with a 5 to 1 chip lead against Soulier.

Soulier didn’t go down easy though, and he kept chipping up through his opponent. After 20 hands, Soulier actually grabbed that chip lead from Mateos, and five hands later Soulier had over a 2 to 1 chip lead, but it all led to a shocking comeback from there. It took 60 more hands before things were finalized, but we watched Mateos grind his way back, and retake the lead. Six hands after he regained the chip lead, he was sitting with seven million chips against the 4.2 million of Soulier.

When we saw the final hand happen, it was pretty dramatic. Soulier claled a three bet pre-flop, and when the flop came 4-J-9, Soulier moved all-in over Mateos’ bet. Mateos sat and thought for a long, long time, and made the call with just A-K. Soulier showed 9-8 and was in a good spot, but the turn came with a King, and this was pretty much it barring a miracle river. The river was a five, which didn’t help, and this meant that Adrian Mateos was our WSOPE Champion, and went home with a pay day of €1,000,000, while Fabrice Soulier took home €610,000 for second place.